III. _The Lamp of Impartiality_.--The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party. He must see everywhere the good that is mixed with evil, the evil that is mixed with good. And this he will not do, unless his heart is right. It is in Scott's historical novels that his impartiality is most severely tried and is most apparent; though it is apparent in all his works. Shakespeare was a pure dramatist; nothing but art found a home in that lofty, smooth, idealistic brow. He stands apart not only from the political and religious passions but from the interests of his time, seeming hardly to have any historical surroundings, but to shine like a planet suspended by itself in the sky. So it is with that female Shakespeare in miniature, Miss Austen. But Scott took the most intense interest in the political struggles of his time. He was a fiery partisan, a Tory in arms against the French Revolution. In his account of the coronation of George IV. a passionate worship of monarchy breaks forth, which, if we did not know his noble nature, we might call slavish. He sacrificed, ease, and at last life, to his seignorial aspirations. On one occasion he was even carried beyond the bounds of propriety by his opposition to the Whig chief. The Cavalier was his political ancestor, the Covenanter the ancestor of his political enemy. The idols which the Covenanting iconoclast broke were his. He would have fought against the first revolution under Montrose, and against the second under Dundee. Yet he is perfectly, serenely just to the opposite party. Not only is he just, he is sympathetic. He brings out their worth, their valour, such grandeur of character as they have, with all the power of his art, making no distinction in this respect between friend and foe. If they have a ridiculous side he uses it for the purposes of his art, but genially, playfully, without malice. If there was a laugh left in the Covenanters, they would have laughed at their own portraits as painted by Scott. He shows no hatred of anything but wickedness itself. Such a novelist is a most effective preacher of liberality and charity; he brings our hearts nearer to the Impartial Father of us all.